TWITTER TRUMP BAN THEN ENTHUSES ABOUT FREE

Issie Lapowsky ( email | twitter ) This story originally appeared on. “The consequences of this poll will be important,” Agrawal wrote. But as Twitter faces down the potential impact of its new troll king, it’s hard not to see the truth in it too. The question now is whether he’ll take Twitter seriously too, or treat it like a plaything to shape to the liking of his many devoted fan boys.Īgrawal, for one, shared Musk’s poll about the edit button with a good-natured jab parroting one of Musk’s own self-serious tweets from late last month. For all his bluster and promises, Musk has made lots of wild wishes actually come true. You don’t make hundreds of billions of dollars building electric cars and rockets by doing everything for the lulz. (Twitter said it’s been working on the feature since last year and “didn’t get the idea from a poll.”)īut it’s also important to remember that Musk can be serious when he wants to be. For now, Musk is taking to his newfound power like some kind of Silicon Valley Santa Claus, polling his followers on wish-list items, like whether they want an edit button. What happens to all that work when it runs up against the views of the new most powerful person at Twitter?

TWITTER TRUMP BAN THEN ENTHUSES ABOUT FREE

And who can blame them? Musk’s apparent interest in pushing Twitter to prioritize free expression seems at total odds with the company’s ongoing efforts to create what it refers to as a “healthy” environment on the platform. In retrospect, it reads like a warning.įor all of the excitement from the right, rank-and-file Tweeps were decidedly less enthused about - and even openly critical of - Musk’s new role. Less than two weeks before his stake in Twitter went public - but well after he actually accumulated the shares - Musk teased that he was “ giving serious thought” to building his own social network, in light of what he described as Twitter’s failure “to adhere to free speech principles.”Īt the time, the tweet read like any of Musk’s other half-baked ideas - including, most recently, his attempt to challenge Vladimir Putin to hand-to-hand combat. Meanwhile, calls poured in from the right urging Musk to restore Trump’s account.

“2022 is the year that we take back our country.”įox’s Tucker Carlson called it “a good day in America” when the news of Musk’s 9% stake was announced. Lauren Boebert, who was temporarily suspended from Twitter last year. “Elon Musk being named to Twitter’s Board of Directors is just the start,” tweeted Colorado Rep.

CEO Parag Agrawal discussed the “ great value” Musk would bring to the company, while co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey noted Agrawal and Musk would “ be an incredible team.” In an uncharacteristically formal response to Agrawal, Musk said: “Looking forward to working with Parag & Twitter board to make significant improvements to Twitter in coming months!”īut the announcement was also instantly politicized, with Republican lawmakers and pundits alike cheering their favorite shitposter’s ascension to the top of the big, bad company that unapologetically axed Trump. In some ways, the news Tuesday that Twitter had appointed Musk to the board could have been ripped from any corporate playbook. So what happens when a tech company’s biggest shit-stirrer becomes its biggest shareholder - and a member of the board? We’re about to find out. Trump may have had him beat for a bit, but he’s already banned for life, so the title goes to Musk, a fully grown man and billionaire whose tweets have at times been so reckless, they have their own federally mandated “Twitter sitter.” On the short list of Twitter troublemakers, Elon Musk has got to rank somewhere near the tippy-top.

Twitter trump ban then enthuses about